**4.1. Pierre Belon**

8 New Approaches to the Study of Marine Mammals

presence of many legs (Leitner 1972, p. 218).

tales about interactions between cetaceans and humans.

authors, whose works, in some cases, are no longer available).

**3. Medieval times** 

information was generated.

**4. The renaissance** 

organism whose legend may be based on polychaetes, marine annelids characterized by the

Pliny recognized that neither whales nor dolphins have gills, that they suckle from the teats of their mothers, and that they are viviparous. In addition to these true facts copied from Aristotle, he mentioned exaggerations such as whales of four jugera (ca. 288 m) in length that because of their large size "are quite unable to move" (IX 2,3). In addition to some of the biological facts mentioned by Aristotle, Pliny adorns his narrative with all kind of casual

By lumping together all kinds of aquatic organisms it is hard to distinguish what he called "fish" and what he did not (see for example IX 44-45). His classification took a step back from Aristotle because he did not try for a comprehensive classification of animals. He failed to compare organisms based on shared or divergent characters. Many times he ordered creatures based on size, from the largest to the smallest. Yet, his work had great influence for 1700 years, which was unfortunate because he was an uncritical compiler of other people's writings (even if they were contradictory). Pliny also created a number of unfounded impressions about the reality of nature. His only positive contribution was that he established the norm of always citing the sources of his information (in actuality 437

During the middle ages, little progress was made in the sciences. Students were urged to believe what they read and not to question conventional wisdom. Logic determined truth, not observation. Free thought was non-existent and minds were filled with mythological explanations for the unknown. Marine mammals were depicted as monsters and little new

The Renaissance was a time of awakening and the religious ideology began to be questioned. The translations of the works of Aristotle and Pliny into Latin and the introduction of the printing press helped to spread the little knowledge accumulated until that time about natural history in the western world. For example, by 1500 about 12 editions of Aristotle's *Historia Animalium* and 39 of Pliny's *Historia Naturalis* had seen the light, which is evidence of the popularity of these works. During this age of discovery the finding of species that were never mentioned neither by Aristotle nor the Bible, opened up scientific curiosity about new creatures around the world. Thus, people once again began to seek new knowledge. However, in these times, naturalists were more compilers of information than investigators despite the fact that they were performing more dissections that in turn uncovered new taxonomic possibilities. Still, scientists relied on environmental aspects to

classify animals. Collecting was a primary activity during this era (Alves 2010, p. 54).

Belon8 was the first author studying marine mammals in this historical period. Little is known about his family and early years. He traveled extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East, including the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. Among the places he visited were Rome where he met two other ichthyologists, Rondelet and Salviani (see below). He studied medicine at the University of Paris and botany at the University of Wittenberg, Germany. He served as a doctor and apothecary for French kings, as well as a diplomat, traveler, and as a secret agent (he was murdered under strange circumstances) (Wong 1970).

His *L'Histoire Naturelle des Estranges Poissons Marins* (1551) was the first printed scholarly work about marine animals. This book was expanded and published in French in 1555 as *La Nature et diversité des poissons* including 110 species with illustrations for 103 of them.

Belon not only reproduced information from Aristotle and Pliny but also added his own observations including comparative anatomy and embryology. For him "fish" was anything living in the water. He divided "fishes" in two large groups: the first was "fish with blood" (as Aristotle had done) that included not only actual fishes but also cetaceans, pinnipeds, marine monsters and mythical creatures such as the "monk fish," as well as other aquatic vertebrates such as crocodiles, turtles, and the hippopotamus. He called a second group "fishes without blood" and consisted of aquatic invertebrates (see also Delaunay 1926).

He ordered what we know as cetaceans today in a vaguely descending order based on size: *Le balene* (mysticete whales, although in the illustration he depicted a cetacean with teeth), *Le chauderon* (sperm whale? although he mentions the sawfish), *Le daulphin* (common dolphins on which he devoted 38 pages of this 55-page book), *Le marsouin* (porpoise), and *L'Oudre* (bottlenose dolphin) (for a rationale on the identification of these species see Glardon 2011, p. 393-398). He dissected common dolphins (*D. delphis*) and porpoises (*P. phocaena*) acquired at the fish market in Paris brought in by Normandy fishers, and probably a bottlenose dolphin (*T. truncatus*) as well.

He described these marine mammals as having a placenta, mammae, and hair on the upper lip of their fetus. Belon wrote that apart from the presence of hind limbs, they conform to the human body plan with features such as the liver, the sternum, milk glands, lungs, heart, the skeleton in general, the brain, genitalia. He also dealt with issues of breathing and reproduction (although from the description it is clear that he never saw one of these animals giving birth, since he depicted the newborn surrounded with a membrane). He drew the embryo of a porpoise and the skull of a dolphin (Fig. 1). Despite all this he did not make the connection between cetaceans and "viviparous quadrupeds" and based his entire classification on environmental foundations, as he made clear in the introduction of his work.
